GP2X redone into a home console

[palmertech]

First, background: My gp2x's stick click broke, so that it was always on. This was not that big of a problem, but then i found out that the new version of pocketsnes will not exit menus unless you let go of ALL the buttons. Meanwhile, the stick had gotten pretty loose, due to heavy, HEAVY use and maybe the fact that the stick click broke. So i take my gp2x apart, planning to do a dpad mod, and i have a capacitor that fell off! I knew that this happened a lot. So i tried to fix it. Unfortunately, my 30 watt soldering ironwas not exactly ideal for the task. So, i plan to make my gp2x into a quasi-portable system! I plan for it to have an snes controller, 60gb notebook usb drive, composite and svideo out, 3 portusb hub, and built in screen. I am using the plastic from a typewriter to construct the case. I plan on starting rewiring the controller tonight. Questions: I planon putting a d-cell battery pack in it. Does the capacitor problem kill battery life REALLY bad, like it seemed to do to bacteria? If so, bummer. Any suggestions? I will keep you posted on the details. By the way, i thought it was funny coming to a forum that focuses on making home consoles portable, to help me make a portable a home console!

[bacteria]

Yup, if a capacitor blows or falls of the GP2x board it knackers battery life, it has been quite widely discussed on the GP2x forum. I couldn't see a missing capacitor on mine, so chances are one failed, with the same result (or I missed it). Lots of guides for D-pad modding a GP2x on the www.GP32x.com forum.

Composite from the GP2x to a TV is bad, S-video is also bad; however it is acceptable on a small screen like a 5" PSone screen.

[Negative_Creep]

Doesn't GP2X do Component/RGB out?

[bacteria]

No, absolutely not. It only does S-video: you can get composite by merging the chroma and luma lines (which is what I thought you meant).

To make it worse, you get missing lines on the screen as the resolution is different (the output is only 320 x 240) and you get lots of blurryness on the screen as your TV has much higher resolution than this. I haven't seen these missing lines on the PSone screen as the resolution is native; the picture quality on the PSone screen is good but not excellent; but good enough.

Given that S-video is always better than composite, I used the S-video hack to make the PSone screen take the GP2x S-video signals on my project.

[palmertech]

Ok, so what should i do about tv-out? I hope ryleh on the gp2x boards finishes his tv-out fixer soon, if he ever does. Does the gp2x output rgb? After testing the gp2x for about 4 hours playing snes, it still had not died. I need to find a schematic of the gp2x mobo to see if i can see what that fuse does. Also....last night, i took apart the gp2x and rewired all the buttons to about 4 inch wires. All was well, and all i had left were the start and select buttons. I soldered a wire to the positive end of select (i have a common ground for all the buttons). but when i performed the gentle yank test...it pulled the contact traces right off the board! What should i do? Is there a way, software or hardware, to remap the select button to stick-click? Nothing uses it, especially now that f200 has no stick-click. Also, does anyone know of an alternative place on the mobo where i could find that trace? I was thinking maybe near whatever chip it is that takes control inputs...Also, tv out is terrible on one of my tvs, but on the other, except for the scaling problem, it is about perfect, about as good as my snes!

[palmertech]

No, absolutely not. It only does S-video: you can get composite by merging the chroma and luma lines (which is what I thought you meant).

To make it worse, you get missing lines on the screen as the resolution is different (the output is only 320 x 240) and you get lots of blurryness on the screen as your TV has much higher resolution than this. I haven't seen these missing lines on the PSone screen as the resolution is native; the picture quality on the PSone screen is good but not excellent; but good enough.

Given that S-video is always better than composite, I used the S-video hack to make the PSone screen take the GP2x S-video signals on my project.

By the way, i am not just merging the lines for composite video. I am actually using a very high quality svideo to composite adapater which actually makes the image look better than svideo, imo.

[bacteria]

1) S-video is better than composite. I too had a crappy and a good quality S-video > composite cable, however the bottom line is S-video is still better.

2) Secure your soldered wires by hot glue to blank areas of the mobo, so the wires stay in place and don't yank out.

3) Give up with relying on ryleh completing the project, I don't believe it came to anything in the end, unfortunately - I was looking forward to it.

4) If it helps to secure solder to traces, use flux.

5) No, you can't remap the Select button, however what you can do is scrape away the trace for the Select on the mobo and wire this connection to the stick click; then when you press Select, you get stick click. Only thing then is that you can't use Select as Select, which would be a problem in other games. You could always put in a tact switch in the casing and run that to the stick click and be done with it.

[palmertech]

I think i was misunderstood. You see, i completly killed the traces to the select button. I dont want stick click, i need select. So all i need is a way to trigger select, and i thought maybe i could sacrifice stick click... And it is not a surface trace, it goes into the mid board layer...So i need to know if there are any other spots on the board that meet with the + select trace. Does anyone have a schematic of the gp2x mobo, than i could see where that trace goes to the controller interpreter board! And yes, i religiously use hot glue on my connections. By the way, in my last post i said it was better than svideo, i meant better than my snes! I know svideo is better, just a mistake.

[palmertech]

sorry for the double post. I just spent like 3 hours looking for an alternative select trace, but no luck. According to the datasheet, the select gpio pin comes from mid layer trace to the mmsp2 gp2x core. So, no luck there. Looks like i will have to find or write a software solution...does anyone know how to edit .gpe files for control changes? Or do you usually edit the .cfg? QUESTION: Can you use a usb cd-rom drive with the gp2x via the ext port? If so, it would be goodfor divx movies and family slideshows!

[bacteria]

Composite from SNES is poor quality. I use composite via the multi-port cable on my SNES for our home TV.

The trace for Select has to go somewhere; maybe a pin on one of the chips. The only idea is to use a multimeter and test every contact on the mobo until you are lucky, then when you find it, connect a wire from that point to the Select trace on the button contact.

I seriously doubt there is a software solution.

For a USB CD-ROM to work on the GP2x you will need the drivers, doubt there are any designed for the GP2x; you also need power as it will need 12v, which means a battery pack or mains power. You can get 1, 2, or 4 Mb SD cards working on the GP2x which is normally ample.

If you hot glue your wiring (to blank mobo parts of the board) after soldering to traces, the wires shouldn't be able to be tugged without lots of force.

[w00tLOL]

You can get 1, 2, or 4 Mb SD cards working on the GP2x which is normally ample

you mean Gb right... god i hope you mean Gb

[w00tLOL]

You can get 1, 2, or 4 Mb SD cards working on the GP2x which is normally ample

you mean Gb right... god i hope you mean Gb

[Negative_Creep]

Yeah he does.

[bacteria]

just a typo - Gb of course!

Anyway, apart from anything else, why bother even thinking of using a low capacity CD drive or DVD drive, even if it were possible (I doubt it is anyway)? You are better off with SD cards.

[palmertech]

I wanted to maybe use a dvd or cd drive because my relatives are always bringing discs of photos, and we always put them in the computer, so gp2x with cd drive and tv out would be cool. Also, it might then be possible to use the ps1 emulator with real discs. I plan on using a 2gb sd for all my games, and using a 60gb notebook drive via the ext port for movies, music, and psx isos. About the select trace...I did try to test every connection on the board, but i have a problem. First, for practice, i tried to find the start button connection. I finally found the trace on the other side of the board, but it is nowhere near any others! So i assume it breaks into 2 traces, with one going to some chip, and the other blank that i found. But i found that trace by using my multimeter. Because i have no select trace to connect my other probe to, i have no way of knowing when i get it! The only way to find it would be to touch the wire i have connected to ground to EVERY connection on the board, WITH the gp2x on the button test mode! I would assume that i should not be doing that, right? I tried on the traces closest to select, and i saw a small spark and my gp2x reset! I found out that the gp2x has a short protection circuit that saved me, but it does not protect most of the higher level circuitry. Looks like i need to try something else. Good news is that someone patched the f-200 firmware so that pressing all the buttons on the dpad triggers a stick click, even though it does not have a real one. So, it SHOULD be possible to make something that triggers select when you hit stick-click+start, right? Thank you for all your help Bacteria, i really appreciate it.